Pucker (19 page)

Her head bobs frantically; she's searching for an answer. There isn't one. A little sound of panic escapes her.

“I didn't count on meeting you,” I say.

“Then you have to go. I won't throw myself in front of a train, if that's what you're worried about,” she says.

She begins to cry. She doesn't cry like a normal girl. The tears spring out of her eyes, but her face doesn't crinkle up at all.

“We'll find a way,” I tell her, desperate to convince both her and myself. “Alice wants to help us. Remember? We're not alone. We have Cook
and
the Maker.”

Here it is, hope. I've managed to pull it out of my hat. It comes bop-bop-bopping along like a little rabbit on velvet paws

Phaidra is less convinced. She just looks at me forlornly.

“We'll figure it out,” I tell her. “Trust me. You'll see.”

FORTY-SEVEN

T
HE NEXT MORNING AT WORK, Otak makes a surprise visit.

“When will you be done?” he asks Brian.

“Two weeks,” says Brian calmly. He's approaching seven hundred days. I don't think he'd make a fuss if I knocked him unconscious with my broom.

“One week,” says Otak.

“All right,” Brian agrees.

Phaidra and I are staining a cabinet. We keep our eyes pasted to our work.

“You two!” Otak yells.

I turn around slowly, with dread.

“Yes, you. And the girl,” says Otak. “A bird flew into my window again. This time it's broken. I want it fixed by this afternoon.”

With a flurry of his robes Otak disappears, a cadre of Seers trailing after him.

Phaidra glances at me. Her eyebrows do a little victory dance at our good fortune. My heart presses painfully against my rib cage, trapped.
Not yet.
I don't want to go yet.

I pick up my brush and dip it into the stain. Slowly I run the bristles down the length of the cabinet.

“Quicksilver?” says Phaidra. “Did you hear him?”

I nod. “We should finish this,” I say.

Phaidra takes the brush out of my hand. “Someone else will finish.” I halfheartedly search while Phaidra fixes the window. I make a show of pawing through Otak's drawers and wardrobe. I open the boxes in the back of his closet. I press the tiles of the fireplace, looking for secret doors. Panic overtakes me as I finally admit to myself the truth. I don't want to find my mother's Seerskin.

“She told me it would be here,” I say dismally, trying to cover up my ambivalence.

Phaidra's caulking the new window. “Did you honestly think you'd find it stuffed in his drawer?” she says. “Think outside the box.”

“I hate that expression,” I say.

“Well, it applies here,” she says.

“Damn!”

Phaidra looks at me calmly. “You're going about this all wrong.”

“What if he shredded it up into tiny pieces?” I ask.

“I'm sure he didn't do that,” she says. “It's here.
Somewhere.
”

I groan. She's such a better person than I am.

“It could be anywhere in Isaura!” I say.

I think of the bird, the second one that crashed into Otak's window. Was it the offspring of the first bird that had died? Was it so filled with sorrow, so overwhelmed with grief it decided to follow its mother into death?

“I don't want to go back, Phaidra,” I say.

Phaidra climbs down off the windowsill. She pulls a rag from her back pocket and wipes her scraper clean of the caulking. She's thinking, carefully composing her response, but I can't stand that she's not answering me immediately. I want her to absolve me for saying such a blasphemous thing, but I can't help what my heart wants—to stay with her in Isaura, where we're both beautiful and whole. I take the scraper out of her hand and hurl it across the room. “What if it's her time to die?” I shout.

Suddenly I feel claustrophobic. I run to the window and open it. I stick my head out and look down at the ground, gulping in huge breaths of air. I don't know what I'm expecting to find. The remains of the bird are gone, but I can see the ghost of it splayed out on the cobblestones: its bones of straw, a wing wrapped around its tiny head. If I held it in my hand, would it smell of sky?

“You can't give up,” says Phaidra softly.

“Give up on what?” asks Otak.

“Give up on carpentry,” says Phaidra, without missing a beat. She turns around and smiles patronizingly at me. “He's no natural, but I keep telling him practice makes—”

“For a dull life indeed,” finishes Otak. “If you're practicing something you have no aptitude for.” He walks to the window and runs his finger across the glass. “Nicely done.” He turns to me. “You should think about finding yourself a new vocation. Now, shall I ring Roberta for some tea?” he asks pleasantly.

“No,” I say. I can't stand the charade any longer. Underneath that charming exterior is a monster.

“Thomas needs to get back early today,” Phaidra says.

“Go,” says Otak, dismissing me. “You'll stay,” he says to Phaidra. It's a command, not a question.

“It's all right if I'm late,” I say quickly, not wanting to leave her alone with him.

“Very well, then,” says Otak.

Roberta raps at the door and walks into the room.

“Tea for three,” Otak tells her.

We spend the rest of the afternoon with him. He interviews us on all things that have to do with America. He's like Jane Goodall conducting a study on the gorillas and when we leave, I feel robbed, like my pockets have been picked while I was bending down to tie my shoe.

FORTY-EIGHT

W
HEN I TELL DASH THAT I'm done with the Connecticuts, he says no way.

“No way what?” I ask.

“No way will I allow it.”

We're stacking wood. Well, I'm stacking wood—he's splitting it; I'm not to be trusted with an ax. The backyard is punctuated by his grunts as the blade pivots through the air. He's an efficiency machine. Not one iota of energy is wasted. Secretly I've been studying his moves.

“Why would you even care?” I ask, but I know the answer. He thinks if I'm seeing the Connecticuts, he won't have to worry about me with Phaidra.

“They're boring,” I add.

He wipes the sweat off his forehead with a bandana. “Life is boring. You just put up with it.”

“I'm done putting up with things,” I say.

Dash slams the ax down into the chopping block in one graceful arc. Wood chips fly everywhere, including my left eye. I rub my eye vigorously and jump around on one foot. He looks at me with disgust; once again I'm overreacting.

“I'm with Phaidra,” I say angrily. “That's why I broke it off with the others.”

Dash shakes his head. “'Fraid not, kid.”

“Look, I don't know what went on between the two of you,” I say. “And to be honest, I don't really want to know. But we're together now.”

“That so?”

“Yeah,” I say.

Dash tosses a piece of wood over his shoulder and it lands neatly on the pile.

“There's the little matter of the book,” he says.

“You tell them whatever you want to about the book. I stole it from the Ministry. It was a bad call. I'll apologize; I'll accept my punishment and move on,” I say.

“No,” says Dash. “That's not how it's going down. Don't think I'm not on to you. You're going to hurt her. I don't know how or why, but you're going to break her heart. And I won't let you,” he says, his finger stabbing the air in front of me.

“You don't have any say in it,” I retort. “Things haven't gone your way. You lost. You didn't get Phaidra. I did. Now get over it.”

My vision has cleared up, unfortunately. Just in time to see him toggle the ax out of the chopping block, grab it with one meaty hand, and lumber toward me. I look around frantically for help . . . and see Emma.

“Put that down,” she cries.

Dash grabs me around the neck and throws me up against the woodpile. I can hear Patrick's voice in my head running down a list of potential countermoves from wrestling: the Corkcrew Moonsault, the Gorry Special, and the Samoan Drop. No, no, and no. I reject them all (might have something to do with the fact that I can remember none of the moves, only their names). What's needed is something simple. Just as I'm about to ram my knee up into Dash's groin, he hefts the ax, spins the head around, and slices my cheek with the razor-sharp edge of the gleaming blade.

“Think you're such a prize,” he hisses.

“No, that would be you,” I say, blood seeping out from between my fingers.

Meanwhile Emma's got her hands around his waist and is trying to peel him off me. “Get away from Thomas!” she cries.

“Don't fall in love with her!” he roars.

“Is that an ultimatum?”

“Consider it a warning.”

“Well, it's too late,” I yell at him.

“Dash!” I hear a woman's voice. It's Nancy, the Head Host.

This time Dash listens. He backs away from me slowly. Even unflappable Nancy is taken aback when she sees the blood streaming down my face.

“What happened?” she asks.

Emma's trying to mop up the blood with the sleeve of her shirt. I take her hand away. She nods, but I can see she's terribly upset. I draw her into my hip protectively.

“He just went crazy,” I say to Nancy.

Dash doesn't say a word in his defense and this astounds me. Now would be the perfect time to turn me in. Instead he just looks at me tiredly and somehow I feel like I'm the one who's betrayed him.

“Dash—you're on probation as of now,” says Nancy. “Thomas 16 will be transferred to my house immediately.”

“No,” says Dash. “Give me one more week to prove myself.”

“You've just sliced open his cheek,” says Nancy.

“It was a little scratch,” he says.

The blood is copious, but I realize he's right. This is a little scratch compared to everything else I've been through in my life. I stand there, panting, trying to make sense of what's just happened. As my heart races and I try and catch my breath, I realize it felt good; I've never been in a position to fight over a girl before. And then I know why Dash hasn't turned me in. There is a code of honor between us. You can cut each other open. But you will not give each other up.

“I'll stay,” I tell her.

“What?” asks Nancy, swiveling around.

I shrug. “I was asking for it.”

She eyes me distrustfully. “Well, since you seem to be so suddenly fond of each other, one week. After that you move to my house.” She takes the ax out of Dash's hands and props it up against the woodpile. “You, meet me in the Refectory in ten minutes.”

Dash walks away. Nancy takes my chin in her hand and turns my face to the left. “You better get to the infirmary. They'll have some sort of salve to aid the healing.”

“I'll take him,” chirps Emma.

Nancy looks down at Emma like she's a shrub she's just stumbled over. “You do that, little girl.” Then she looks back at me. “You have quite the fan club.”

“No, ma'am,” I say.

“I'll be watching you, Thomas.”

And she does. She watches Emma and me until we disappear from her sight. And even after we have entered the infirmary, she is still watching, standing by the woodpile, her hand resting lightly on the ax.

FORTY-NINE

I
T'S AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN DASH returns. I've fallen asleep at the table. He kicks the leg of my chair, waking me. “Get to bed.”

“What happened?” I mumble, my speech slurred with sleep.

“What the hell do you think happened?”

“You're in trouble?”

He sneers. “I'm on probation. You think that's a good thing?”

“Look, I'm sorry,” I begin.

“Stow it.”

He rummages through the back of a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. He pours himself two fingers' worth, sits down, and tosses the amber liquid down his throat.

“I'll stay here,” I say. “I won't go to Nancy's.”

“Too late for that.”

“Well, maybe it's for the best. That way you won't have to see me and . . .”

He glares at me and pours himself another shot.

“Can I have some?” I ask.

He looks at me disdainfully. “You're pathetic, Quicksilver.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Probably.”

He empties the glass and then rolls it across the table with his palm. “Imagine this is you. You're in the middle of a lake. Sitting in a rowboat. One oar in the water,” he says.

“What is this?” I blurt. “A sample question from the SATs?”

Dash glares at me. “Just shut up and listen for once.” He runs his finger around the lip of his glass. “Here you are. Spinning around in circles.”

“Just get to the point.”

“Let me ask you something, Thomas.”

“What, already?” I say.

The last thing my father said to me was,
I'll be here when you get back
. A lie, of course, for he was about to die. He would never be back. But what's the fuss? It's only one lie out of the millions to be filed with all the rest of the lies that children are told. But a lie such as this has a blunt tip and it slowly works its way into the body, week by week, year by year. Until one day you find you have been tunneled. Within you is a trench through which the twin currents of grief and betrayal flow.